AustinAction Sanity Island

I received the following email from a member of the ASPCA in Austin regarding the use of the AustinAction.org website for the petition to “Stop the Dead End Shelter”. My response follows.

I am concerned that you are promoting the animal shelter issue with one very limited perspective. The ASPCA launched ASPCA Mission: Orange in Austin in January 2007 with the goal of increasing the animal save rate in Austin. We are partnered with the agencies in Austin that are actually doing the work to save animal lives, every day, every year, Animal Trustees of Austin; Austin Humane Society; EmanciPET; and Town Lake Animal Center. The ASPCA has committed five, National Outreach, experienced staff and $600,000 to this project. We are in favor of the move of the city shelter to the new location, which by the way is not exactly an out of the way industrial location. As a matter of fact one of our partners, that is doing work to save animals, EmanciPET, is located at this site.

In a national survey of other government animal shelters that have moved to similar locations the results were a minimum of a 20% increase in adoptions and an increase in animal intake. We have contact names and numbers if you or any of your readers would like to talk to people who have actually had experience with this type of relocation to contact themselves. To get first hand information would be more informative than to listen to people who are making statements that are not based on fact but are fashioned to blow things out of proportion to advance a personal agenda.

Please talk to the people actually doing hands-on-work with and for animals before going down a road paved by people who do not have the experience of saving animals on a daily basis.

I would be happy to provide you or any one with more information on this topic.
Let’s stay focused on real facts and save animal lives.

Below is a letter of support for the move:

ASPCA© Mission: Orange™
Statement of Support

The private non-profit business partners of the ASCPA Mission: Orange project wish to express our support for relocation of Town Lake Animal Center to the Levander site without delay.

The new shelter location will allow the city to focus services and resources on prevention in the geographic areas that need them most. This will include expanded micro-chipping, spay/neuter surgeries, and responsible pet stewardship.

Providing a new facility with a friendly, adequate adoption space will increase adoptions. The increased acreage will allow room for additional services to improve the quality of life for our community’s animals, such as a dog park.

The animals and people of Austin have waited long enough for a new facility. We encourage you to move forward without delay on this critically needed project.

Sincerely,
Frances Jonon, Executive Director, Austin Humane Society
Missy McCullough, Executive Director, Animal Trustees of Austin
Ellen Jefferson, DVM, Medical Director, emanciPET
Amy Mills, Executive Director, emanciPET
Karen Medicus, Team Leader, ASPCA Mission: Orange - Austin

Dear (name witheld),

Thank you for contacting us about your concerns regarding our perspective on the animal shelter issue. I can assure you that we do take the time and make every effort to get our facts straight before lending our time and expertise to any cause. This issue is certainly no exception.

You may be interested to read my initial assessment of the proposed new location on our blog here: http://blog.austinaction.org/?p=147

As you will read in that post, I said “the proposed new location is an out-of-sight, out-of-mind location. I started my research by driving out to the proposed site, looking around, watching traffic, and driving around the area. I came to the conclusion that the surrounding area is, for the most part, industrial in nature.” I have also reviewed the city’s zoning map to see how the surrounding tracts are zoned, and I stand by my statement.

You may also like to see the photos that I took of the surrounding area here

I also took it upon myself to download every document available from the 2006 Bond Advisory Committee website and review them for references to the shelter’s new location after the Statesman and city staff claimed that voters voted on this location. I found no evidence to indicate that a legitimate public process has taken place with regard to considering the new shelter location. On the contrary, I found evidence of promises that a public process would occur, but those promises were never fulfilled. That, in itself, is enough of a reason for me to be concerned.

So, as you can see, I did take the initiative to see firsthand what the shelter’s move would mean to me. Exactly what personal agenda are you referring to?

I would be interested to find out more about the national survey that you reference. I find it hard to believe that just by moving a shelter away from a well-known, downtown location, adoptions increase. But, I will be happy to review the information to see it for myself.

As far as staying focused on the facts, let’s dissect some of yours:

The new shelter location will allow the city to focus services and resources on prevention in the geographic areas that need them most. This will include expanded micro-chipping, spay/neuter surgeries, and responsible pet stewardship.

According to the City’s own records, the highest concentration of pets sheltered at TLAC come from Southwest Austin, not East Austin. None of the zip codes surrounding the City’s proposed site–near the intersection of Airport Road and East 7th Street–is even among the top 5 highest-intake zip codes. Couldn’t offsite adoption centers be used to reach areas that need additional services?

Providing a new facility with a friendly, adequate adoption space will increase adoptions. The increased acreage will allow room for additional services to improve the quality of life for our community’s animals, such as a dog park.

A dog park can be built at Levander Loop, regardless of whether the shelter is moved there. I have yet to see a proposed service for the new location that cannot be provided at the current one. On the contrary, city officials must resort to offsite adoption centers to bring services back to the “heavy foot traffic” areas if the shelter is moved.

I hope this is enough information to make it clear that we do attempt to get first-hand information before committing the AustinAction.org website to any issue. We deeply value our time and resources and will only commit ourselves to causes that we feel strongly about. Based on the response from the community, we are extremely confident that we are on the right side of this issue. After all, how can one argue that moving the shelter from a central location will be beneficial for the animals?

I encourage the ASPCA to reconsider their support for this ill-conceived move. People aren’t dumb - they see it for what it is - and it will only continue to hurt your credibility.